Latin America

Where We Work

We work across Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname and Uruguay. We have a growing team of experts who develop innovative solutions to improve our partners’ sustainability performance, focusing on nine commodities sectors: coffee, cocoa, fruits and vegetables (bananas and orange), mining, palm oil, soybeans and tea and yerba mate.

Challenges

Unsustainable Supply Chains

Structural challenges in supply chains prevent the region and its producers from reaching their full potential in terms of efficiency, competitiveness, inclusivity and environmental protection. By addressing these issues, we contribute to more sustainable production and influence markets.

Latin America harbors the highest percentage of forest cover on the planet and is key for climate action. Livestock, soy, cocoa, palm oil, and coffee are among the key deforestation drivers in the region. We strongly believe that environmental sustainability, and a reduction in forest and ecosystems pressure, will not be delivered if producers’ livelihoods are affected negatively and market players are not engaged with this agenda.

Farming is increasingly vulnerable to a changing climate. Unpredictable rainfall patterns lead to longer periods of droughts and floods that decrease soil fertility, productivity and farmers’ income. With no access to suitable technical assistance, farmers end up expanding over native vegetation areas increasing deforestation rates.

Most informal workers work in unsafe conditions and are not paid a living wage. In the gold sector, the more rigid the rules are to move from informal to formal work, the greater is the risk of exploitation that small-scale artisanal miners, particularly women, face.

Though corporate commitments take place, only a few companies make concrete actions to source sustainable commodities available. Without adequate economic recognition from the market for the environmental and social value generated by sustainable production, producers’ investments in sustainable practices will run short.

Solutions

Integrated market solutions

We deliver practical solutions that result in efficient supply chains that optimize present and future resources. Our ambition is that these practical solutions are scaled by others, enabling the transformation of commodity sectors.

As farmers have rights, in many countries in Latin America, to legally convert forest land to expand their production, our role is to work with them so that this conversion is not needed. With our focus on producing ‘more with less’, Solidaridad aims to connect the issue of deforestation with economic and social viability. We develop production models that are profitable, improve the resilience of producers to climate change, capture carbon, avoid deforestation and promote landscape restoration in critical biomes such as the Amazon, Cerrado, Chaco and the Mesoamerican mixed forest.

We ensure that technical assistance is effective, so that producers can increase or maintain their productivity as a result of implementing sustainable or responsible practices. To this end, we develop digital solutions that optimize the daily work of field officers, provide insight on producers’ gaps and progress, and provide online training for trainers and producers.

Isolated actors cannot solve systemic problems on their own. We facilitate dialogue to align relevant stakeholders around a shared vision and collective work. Within these dialogues, we provide critical information such as studies, detailed cost analyses of farm production and technical guidelines for areas where the sector struggles. Our role also encompasses piloting collective solutions on the ground to assess what is possible and what can be replicated. One example of this work is the implementation of the EUDR regulation.

We improve the ability of producers to access markets as well as developing regulatory frameworks and policies that provide better commercial terms, fair prices and rewards for sustainable practices. One of our focus areas is supporting producers and companies to transition to carbon neutral supply chains by scaling payments for ecosystem services (carbon, biodiversity protection and water management).

CONTRIBUTING TO SECTOR TRANSFORMATION

In 2024, we worked with 51 companies to test sustainable solutions that improve product traceability, monitoring and technical assistance for their suppliers and producers. By creating spaces where producer organizations, the private sector and public actors can engage in dialogue, we contribute to sector transformation. Our ultimate goal is to ensure conditions that enable small-scale producers to thrive and steward the lands.

New synergies, more impact

In 2023, we integrated our work in Central and South America to create more impact and synergies. We expanded our climate-smart model with incentives for carbon captures to cocoa, and prepared the groundwork to meet the new EU regulation on deforestation.

LATAM - Sugarcane highlight - MasCaña project in Mexico

CARBON CREDITS

Carbon credits are becoming an important incentive to introduce smallholders to low-carbon agriculture and protect native forests. In 2022, we secured more than 6M EUR to scale access to the Acorn Platform, through which 80% of the carbon credits’ value returns to the farmer: an interesting proposition within voluntary markets

IMPROVED BUSINESS ECOSYSTEMS

Through Muda Cana, in partnership with Orplana, we supported 22 farmers’ associations that have improved their service provision to 6,900 farmers (45 per cent of sugarcane producers in Brazil, the largest producer of sugar in the world). This represents about 45,400,549 tons of sugar cane/year produced on 3,791.73 hectares. MudaCana won the Bonsucro Award for Best value-chain sustainability initiative.

GENDER INCLUSION IN MINING

During three years, the mining programme developed the first gender analysis of the sector in Bolivia, made visible the contribution of small cooperative mining to the country’s economy and consolidated the Women and Mining Network in Bolivia. This action strengthens the leadership and advocacy skills of 200 women, one of whom participated in parliamentary elections.

JURISDICTIONAL APPROACH

The “Chaco Sustentable” project facilitated the creation of a multi-stakeholder dialogue platform (MSP) where indigenous communities, dairy cooperatives, and government democratically established an agenda of priorities to improve resilience to droughts and other climatic events affecting Teniente Primero Irala Fernández, a district in the Paraguayan Chaco. After four years, cooperatives increased their production by 17 percent and their income by 75%, with 29 percent less GEI emissions per hectare. Indigenous communities built two water reservoirs that can hold up to 36,000m3 of rainfall water for 944 families and grew 136,000 kilos of sesame that was sold to an exporter.

PRODUCTIVE RESTORATION OF THE AMAZON

A pilot combined restoration of deforested/degraded land in the Brazilian Amazon (Tuerê) with cocoa under agroforestry systems and livestock intensification practices. After six years, deforested areas decreased by 64 per cent, and GEI emissions decreased by 75 per cent against baseline. Families receiving technical assistance improved their cocoa productivity by 35% and their gross income from cocoa by 51%. The model has proven that for each Real invested in technical assistance, producers gain 4 Reals in income.

CLIMATE-SMART COFFEE

After three years, the first regional pilot of climate-smart agriculture ended having involved 7,361 producers in Colombia, Mexico and Peru who adopted agroforestry systems to grow coffee over 16,000 hectares. As a result, 17,500 tonnes of sustainably produced coffee reach the market and farmer’s productivity increases by 21 percent.

MESOAMERICAN PALM OIL

MAPA opened a dialogue space for the palm oil sector to generate agreements and action plans in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Mexico. From 2016 to 2022, the initiative managed more than 345,000 hectares under sustainable management, engaging 12,800 producers and 43 processors. It also led to the national interpretation of the RSPO standards in Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, with 33,200 hectares certified in Honduras and 107,00 in Guatemala.

COMPETITORS CAN COLLABORATE

The Sustainable Trade Platform in Colombia proved that commercial competitors can successfully collaborate on common sustainability challenges. The platform helped to articulate standards, develop climate change adaptation solutions and support producers. In its first four years, the Platform members successfully put in the market 140,165 tonnes of certified/verified coffee, 117,839 tonnes of RSPO certified palm oil, and 38 million boxes of certified bananas.

Sustainable Trade Platform Colombia LATAM 2015

LEVERAGING SUSTAINABLE SOY PRODUCTION

By engaging with leading companies in the region, Solidaridad and the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH) increased the supply of soy produced under several systems of sustainable management by 1.6 million metric tons, covering a total of 845,262 hectares. This confirms that a change of mindset in producers can drive bottom-up market transformation.

Flagship Programmes and Projects

RestaurAmazônia

RestaurAmazônia expands a productive restoration model proven in the state of Pará, Brazil, that increases family income, while ensuring a reduction in carbon emissions and deforestation. This production model combines cocoa agroforestry systems, livestock and preservation of forest areas. The cultivation of cocoa is the mainstay of the system, since it can be combined with native species of trees and annual crops such as bananas, cassava and squash. In the case of breeding cattle, the model runs a partial intensification through the rotation of pastures, which guarantees higher productivity at lower cost.

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Asombrate

Asombrate is a program that supports cocoa and coffee producers in Colombia, Peru and Nicaragua to adopt agroforestry and low-carbon practices, while facilitating their entry into the international voluntary carbon market through the Acorn platform, as a complementary income to their main cash crop.

Cargill global partnership

The global partnership covers soy projects in Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay, and a palm project in Colombia. Its overall objective is to improve farmer livelihoods, increase use of climate-friendly farming practices, and improve conservation and responsible land use.

Fruto Resiliente

Fruto Resiliente is a pre-competitive initiative supported by the Brazilian orange juice processor Cutrale, The Coca-Cola Company, The Coca-Cola Foundation, Innocent Drinks, and Eckes-Granini. By providing training, accessible information and hands-on technical assistance, the project supports small-scale orange farmers in the Brazilian Citrus Belt, which accounts for 90% of national production, to comply with law requirements, labor and environmental standards, and ensure competitiveness.